Animax

World Screen Weekly, June 14, 2007

COUNTRIES: Asia, Latin America, Germany

LAUNCH DATES: July 1998 in Japan, January 2004 across Asia, July 2005 in Latin America, and June 5, 2007 in Germany

OWNERSHIP: Sony Pictures Television International, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment

DISTRIBUTION: The channel reaches 36 million homes in 38 countries via cable and satellite.

DESCRIPTION: Animax is a 24-hour global anime channel broadcast in 11 languages throughout Asia and Latin America and in Germany. The current tagline for the channel is “the coolest destination for the ultimate anime experience.” Prior to the recent launch of Animax in Germany, SPTI already had an anime channel in Central Europe—last year, SPTI acquired the existing Central European anime channel A+ from Minimax. A+ currently airs daily to 4 million people in Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. The company recently announced that A+ would be rebranded as Animax in July 2007.

SENIOR VP, INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS, SPTI: Ross Hair

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: The rollout of Animax in Germany on June 5 marks the launch of the first fully dedicated anime channel in the territory. The lack of existing outlets for this genre in Europe was an important factor in the decision to launch an Animax channel in Germany, says Ross Hair, the senior VP of international networks at SPTI. “This is totally new to the European market,” says Hair. “We don’t have any competitors in the linear television channel space [for anime]. We are hoping to broaden the appetite for the product in other markets.”

One of the key strategies for the European launch was targeting the youth market. The Animax channels in Europe will have some appropriately scheduled children’s anime content but will be primarily geared to teenagers and young adults in the 15-to-29 age group.

Hair believes that targeting the youth market is the best way to introduce anime to a wider audience. “[Youth] set trends, they are able to communicate with each other quickly and a lot of people find out about Animax through that social group [and] the social network they have,” he explains. “In a sense, they’re introducing what is a very fresh and contemporary product, a lot of it never seen before in these markets—it seems like a smart way to initially program the service.”

He notes that the market for anime in Japan is different than in other territories. While the Animax channels outside of Japan are focused on the 15-to-29 demographic, the Japanese service reaches a much broader audience. Animax is currently the number-one pay-TV service in Japan. “The [Animax] service in Japan really [appeals to viewers from] 4 to 85,” says Hair. “It’s across the board. The daypart is stripped [with programming aimed at] kids in the morning and progresses to teenage and adult viewing over the course of the evening.”

Hair says that anime covers more serious topics that are not discussed in typical cartoons. “The key differentiator for anime, other than [being] strictly Japanese, is that it offers the same diversity of genres as mainstream, live-action programming,” he says. “Anime [ranges] from horror to mystery, suspense, comedy [and] romance.”

The schedule for each market varies, and Hair notes that no service is exclusively the same or exclusively different from one another. The content for each market is selected for the local audience. For example, programs airing on Animax in Germany include Hellsing, about a secret government agency that protects Great Britain from “freak” vampires, and Burst Angel, about a culinary student who takes a job cooking for a group of four mysterious young women and is shocked to discover that they are a band of highly skilled angels fighting crime and corruption. Other programs airing on the German channel include Oh! My Goddess, about a college student enchanted with the angelic goddess Belldandy, and Earth Girl Arjuna, about a high-school student who is fatally injured in an accident and is given a second chance to live if she agrees to save the planet from destruction by the demon Raajas. “These titles [have] unusual story lines, which deal with very current and appropriate issues for these markets,” says Hair.

WHAT’S NEW: According to Hair, SPTI is exploring distribution opportunities for Animax in additional markets, such as in the U.K., France, Italy and Spain. Hair also hopes to expand Animax beyond the linear television space, and exploit the channel across various platforms that include video on demand, IPTV and mobile. “[The 15-29 demographic] is an audience that is moving away from linear TV,” says Hair. “Anime is a great vehicle with which to bring back that audience to television but also to track the growing movement in the on-demand space and the mobile space.”

WEBSITES: www.animax-asia.com/www.animaxtv.de/www.animax-la.com

— By Irene Lew